My fiance and I changing mortgage lender for our penthouse in Chorlton with TSB. We have a son 18 who lives with us. Our solicitor requested us to identify anyone over the age of 17 other than ourselves who reside at the property. Our lawyer has now e-mailed a document for our son to sign, waiving any legal rights in the event that the flat is forfeited by the lender. I have a couple of concerns (1) Is this document specific to the TSB conveyancing panel as he never had to sign this form when we remortgaged 5 years ago (2) Does our son by signing this extinguish his rights to inherit the property?

First, rest assured that your TSB conveyancing panel solicitor is doing the right thing as it is established procedure for any occupier who is aged 17 or over to sign the necessary Consent Form, which is purely to state that any rights he has in the property are postponed and secondary to TSB. This is solely used to protect TSB if the property were re-possessed so that in such circumstances, your son would be legally obliged to leave. It does not impact your son’s right to inherit the apartment. Please note that if your son were to inherit and the mortgage in favour of TSB had not been discharged, he would be liable to take over the loan or pay it off, but other than that, there is nothing stopping him from keeping the property in accordance with your will or the rules of intestacy.

I have been referred to a conveyancing solicitor in Chorlton. I need to find out whether they are on the Barclays Direct approved list of lawyers. Can you advise?

The first thing you should do is phone the solicitor and enquire whether they are on the lender panel. Otherwise you should get in touch with Barclays Direct who may be able to confirm.

Despite weeks of looking the Title Certificate and documents to my house are lost. The solicitors who dealt with the conveyancing in Chorlton 5 years ago are no longer around. What are my options?

These day there are copies made of almost everything, and your solicitor should be aware exactly where to locate all the relevant documentation so you may buy or sell your property without any difficulty. Where duplicates are not available, your solicitor can arrange cover in the form of insurance or indemnities against future claims on the property.

I'm purchasing a new build house in Chorlton with a mortgage from Lloyds TSB Bank. The builders refused to reduce the price so I negotiated five thousand pounds worth of additionals instead. The sale representative told me not reveal to my conveyancer about the deal as it could affect my mortgage with the bank. Is this normal?.

All lenders require a Disclosure of Incentives Form from the builder of any new build, converted or renovated property, It is available online from the Lenders’ Handbook page on the CML website. CML form is completed and handed to the lender's surveyor when the inspection is done.

Lenders have different policies on incentives. Some accept none at all, cash or physical, while others will accept cash incentives up to 5%.

Hard to understand why the representative of a builder would be suggesting you withold information from a solicitor when all this will be clearly visible on forms the builder has to supply to its solicitor, the buyer's solicitor and the surveyor.

I have been advised by a number of estate agents in Chorlton to get a quote from a property lawyer using your seach tool. Is there a financial upside for Estate Agents to market your services ahead of another?

We refuse to give any referral fee for directing people our way. We thought it would be too underhand a fee as a client could think, ‘How come the agent getting a kickback? Why aren’t I getting any benefit too?’ We would prefer to grow our business on genuine recommendations.